Myth and Hypocrisy

On American Experience tonight they had an interesting documentary on Martin Luther King Jr. At one point they show reporters asking him to comment on the Watts riots, which occurred just a few days after King was at the White House while Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. While he reaffirms his commitment to non-violence, he also in very frank terms points out that when people have been oppressed for so long, they are going to react violently.

I thought about this in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So many of those who dismiss this same line of argument regarding the violent response of Palestinians to Israeli oppression often follow it with a reference to Martin Luther King Jr. (as well as Ghandi) as a good example of the moral superiority of non-violence. I agree wholeheartedly with them that non-violence is the way to go, but I refuse to negate the rights of Palestinians because some naturally react violently to being oppressed.

As I watched the documentary, I had a profound feeling of sadness. What if King had lived? Maybe he would have been able to get Americans to respond to economic racism and oppression the same way he had to political and social racism. Yet, aside from the fact that his work was taking a terrible toll on his body, I also don't know that white Americans would have responded as favorably as they did to Birmingham or Selma. The response to his march in a Chicago suburb or his stand on the Vietnam War was underwhelming at best. It was like white Americans outside of the South had no problem with making those Southerners start sharing lunch counters and letting blacks vote, but don't make us change. Don't expect us to let them move into our neighborhoods or use our tax dollars to bring them the "American Dream" (King pointed out that it didn't cost Americans anything to pass the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act and it was only right that any commitment to end racism was going to cost something).

Last night my boyfriend, my godfather, and I were comparing class in Europe and America. While my godfather conceded that there is more upward mobility among classes here in the US than in Europe, he maintained that it's definitely not nearly as common as Americans want to believe. It occurred to me that in many ways that may be why racism is still so rampant in America. Blacks don't seem to be buying the whole Horatio Alger myth and white Americans find that extremely threatening.